Awarded bases and appeals.

[David Emerling]

Originally posted by greymule
We should have a thread for "worst call I've ever seen," as long as people promise to be truthful.

I once saw a young umpire allow a batter to remain at first after hitting a foul ball.

The batter hit a slow roller down the first base line in fair territory. The runner was advancing faster than the ball was moving and he passed the ball up while racing toward first. The ball eventually rolled across the foul line, into foul territory where it was picked up by a fielder. But NOT before the batter had reached 1st!

The umpire allowed the batter to remain on first on the basis that he got there while the ball was still fair.

I was watching this game in the capacity as the head umpire at the park that evening. We always have a senior umpire assigned to the park to cruise around in order to make immediate decisions on protests and resolve any other disputes that our younger umpires have difficulty handling.

At first, I just watched with curiosity to see what would happen, intending to interject myself only if it started to blow out proportion. We don't like to bail out the young umps too soon. We want them to "deal" with the situations they create to some extent.

But, humourously, everybody (on both teams) kinda shrugged their shoulders, looked at each other, and allowed the play to stand as ruled. The kid (about 16-yrs-old) really "sold" his call. It was 100% wrong, but he had everybody at the park believing that he was correct.

I let it go. I later told the kid about it and he hit himself in the forehead with an open palm. (I could've had V8 type of slap.) I asked him, "If a batter hits a towering infield pop-up and reaches 1st before it's caught, are you going to allow him to stay there?" That's when his error sunk in.

Pretty funny, really.